I just came to the staggering realization that I have absolutely no idea what the title of this movie refers to. Is it some sort of quote from the film? I can’t remember. Is it a play-on words that I’m either too dense or not Catholic enough to understand?
edit: I mean, obviously I understand the “sister” part.
edit 2: D’oh! I just realized for the very first time that “sister” is a pun not just on Whoopi’s nunnitude but also on her being black. But “act”?
She’s pretending to be a nun. Acting like she’s a sister.
She’s putting on an “act” as a sister, which is to say she’s not really a nun but pretending or "act"ing as one?
[ETA] Damn you Aesiron! 
Think of a group of female performers who are all siblings. That would be a sister act. Only in this case, it’s not siblings, but other kinds of sisters.
A quick check reveals that she was a lounge singer in Vegas who had to go into hiding to escape her mobster ex-boyfriend. So she ends up hiding in a convent as a nun, so her lounge singer past was her “act” then and the nun thing is her new “act.” “Act” as in the sense of your “routine”, that is.
To sum up: “Sister Act” traditionally refers to a group of female singer who are all singers (Andrews, Lemon, Boswell). This is why it’s a recognized term. The pun in the movie title is that she’s portraying a different kind of sister, but still singing.
Well what about the sequel?
Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit is an obviously play on ‘habit’ the term used for a nun’s garment but does anyone use the expression “back in the habit”?
As in “My brother quit smoking for a few months but now he is back in the habit.”
I’ve never heard / used the phrase in this or any other context but maybe it’s just me.
I think you’re overthinking it. They wanted to make a sequel, they needed another nun pun. The concept that really boggles the mind in this instance is that they decided a sequel was a good idea.:rolleyes:
Thanks, y’all. I guess what was throwing me is that people usually put the stress on the second word of the film’s title, making the phrase seem somewhat atypical. lissener, I had never heard of “sister acts”-- thanks.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say it that way. That’s just weird.
It’s kind of a dated expression, but if you’ve ever seen any incarnation of Chicago then one of the main characters is half of a sister act. Until she catches her sister with her mister, that is…
It grossed 140,000,000 domestically and almost another 100,000,000 internationally. A sequel made perfect sense.
Just a few more details - sister acts almost invariably sang, but it was a bonus if they also showcased some other talent in their act, for instance tap dancing. The sisters generally wore matching costumes, had similar hairstyles, and when possible were made up to look as nearly identical as possible.
The Ross Sisters were one of the more unusual sister acts out there :eek:
Those are 1992 dollars.
That thing was huge, and I’ll admit it. The first time they ‘rocked’ is a really cool scene. I showed this movie (as a projectionist) and I probably watched that scene every time.
I’ve always imagined that the original title of the sequel was “Back in Black” (referencing AC/DC) but then somebody thought the title would be easy to misconstrue so we wound up with “Back in the Habit.”
Sister (in the sense of being Black) Whoopi gets a bunch of sisters (in the sense of being nuns) to sing like sisters (back to the sense of being black).
For whatever reason, it seems very familiar to me:
“For a while, I stopped reading the paper every Sunday, but now I am back in the habit of reading it again.” I think most people say “back into the habit” as in “I need to get back into the habit of checking my calender every morning.”
There was a time when the Marx Brothers were four, ie, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo.
Zeppo felt disillusioned that he wasn’t funny like his brothers, despite two of them saying that he was THE FUNNIEST of the quartet.
In the stage version of"Animal Crackers", Zeppo understudied Groucho, who was in hospital having surgery to remove his appendix.
There is the memorable “Dictation Scene” where Zeppo stands in for Groucho.
The other two brothers said that Zeppo was even funnier than Groucho, who felt threatened by this and went on record as saying that the troupe was funnier without Zeppo.
So Zeppo left the brother act (get it?), and being a highly creative inventor, went into business putting this talent to good use, to the extent that he became a multimillionaire.
In “Sister Act”, remember she’s a singer—a show girl, giving rise to the “Act” in the title----and she also donned a nun’s habit, where, as you point out, the pun on “Sister” comes.
In the Marx Brothers’ “brother act”, the “brother” couldn’t be more straight than the way it’s used.
For the record, the word “sister” has nothing to do with Whoopie being black. In fact, the role was originally written for Bette Midler, but she dropped out. (It was quite a revelation to a lot of people that Whoopie could actually sing.)